Testing Military-Grade Adhesive in Extreme Loading Conditions

Abstract

Military performance requirements for adhesives have been traditionally derived to fulfill niche defense needs in harsh operational environments with little consideration for dual-use commercial potential. The drawback with this approach is dwindling defense acquisition access to leading-edge commercially sustainable products, as the market drivers for purely non-defense applications are significantly larger. MIL-PRF-32662, Adhesive, High-Loading Rate, for Structural and Armor Application, is based on a decade of rigorous research efforts to statistically correlate the complex ballistic response of adhesively bonded armor assemblies to universally translatable and commercially relevant mechanical properties. These military performance thresholds were deliberately defined at just beyond state-of-the-art based on a statistical survey of commercially available adhesives. The end results are performance criterion for MIL-PRF-32662 that are difficult, but not impossible, to meet with the intention of attracting commercial interest. The objective of this experimental work is to quantify adhesive performance defined by “harsh military operational environments” against a suitable non-military harsh use condition. The result of this study shows a 32% increase in static load retention strength of an adhesive formulated to meet MIL-PRF-32662 Group 1 requirements when tested in the tensile butt joint geometry specified by Guinness World Records. These results offer further encouragement to explore the potential of military performance specifications as agents of change in leading technical advances in dual-use market sectors.